Well that’s finished, but not readily visible. The finished piece is 20×60″ – in four sections 20×15″ each, laced together. The background is strips of brown fabric stitched over in cobbled circles. A sinuous river of turquoise circles, embellished with perle cotton winds from top to bottom.

The problem with working large is that I cannot photograph it and do it justice. I have to bundle this off to an actual photographer, with tools for coping with big things. So I present a couple of detail shots, courtesy of my phone (which I think has more megapixels than my actual camera at this point).

The working title is “Yooge brown thing in pieces with turquoise circles” which means it will get renamed before I enter it into anything. Although I rather like Yooge – I might try to leave that in.

Secrets: I finished a piece, but I cannot show it to you, because it is a present. A wedding present. Once I’ve given it to the recipients, I will show you all. I am very pleased with it.

Disasters: My beloved sewing machine has stopped working. It makes strange buzzing noises, and hiccups and burps. And then it blinks and burps and the needle rattles. I am having a very bad feeling about this. I have a spare machine, and a promise of another spare machine, so I will be able to continue. But I am worried that just thinking about a new machine, a large quilting machine, has made the current machine jealous, and it is having a tantrum.

Obsessions: I read the call for entries for a particular show, and realized my work was solidly in their purview, but. BUT! There is a minimum size which is roughly 4 times the size I usually work. So I have an idea for a larger work, and I have, so far, two different attempts to translate what is in my head into fabric. There is a particular shade of turquoise that haunts me, and I have to incorporate it somehow.

I like circles. I mean, as a shape, they are appealing and easy to make patterns and ideas with, but also they are geometrically simple; I can elaborate on the surface without obscuring the shape and idea of a circle. I like them enough that I made one a day for an entire year. And I’m not sick of them yet!  I am noticing that the smaller the circles get, the more sinuous I can make the river. It is either that or go large…